Hello, I’m 22 and French. I graduated from high school in 2013 and since then I have :
Studied English for 1 year at the university
Studied Japanese for 3 years at the university
Currently studying in Japan for 1 year to earn a bachelor in Japanese studies
But I am not interested in Japan or Japanese anymore, and I am thinking about earning a second bachelor degree in physics in an English-speaking country. But I came across a few problems:
The main problem is financial, most universities/colleges offer scholarships and funding to students who enroll for the first time only, and my GPA is just the average.
I'm going to take the SAT with writing and ACT in may and do my best even though I know it won't replace my current GPA.
A lot of universities in the US don't offer second bachelors degrees, so this reduces my chances of getting into one
I am also going to take the AP test and the IELTS but I don’t know what else I can do to maximize my chances of getting into the colleges I want
I am lost and I need advises on what to do and what to expect
Why do you want to get a bachelors in US? Why not in your country?
Also, if you want to study in US, I think graduate education-masters and PhD- is a better option. Graduate education might have funding for international students but that really depends on schools and departments.
Lastly, taking AP tests seem pointless. Your credits at your current university will be transferred to your school. If you want to place out of general physics, however, you might want to consider CLEP tests.
You will not get financial aid in the US for a second bachelors degree. If you can’t demonstrate that you can pay the full cost of your education here, you won’t get a student visa. You need to look at other options.
For most mortals among us with limited financial resources, a college education is a means to an end; the only reason to pursue a second Bachelor’s degree is to enter a career that’s not accessible with our first degree. What career did you have in mind?
Unless you want to become a physics professor specifically, physics may not be the best choice of major at this point. Physics majors receive comparatively little training of value to the labor market and often fight an uphill battle to find a job after college, at least in the US.
If you are unsure what you may want to do with your life, Americans would urge you to take a break from education. Work for a year and re-consider. If 16+ years in school haven’t given you clarity about how you want to spend your life, it’s unlikely that another 3 years would make a difference. Personally, I didn’t realize how much my mindset was trapped in an educational bubble until I left it. Now I wish I had worked for few years before I went to graduate school. Or college, even.
Your strategy for standardized testing is overkill. There’s no advantage to taking both the SAT and the ACT - just take the one you are more comfortable with. The French Baccalauréat is considered equivalent to AP exams; no need to waste money on those. (APs are not a test you can easily take anyway. You cannot sign up for AP exams directly; a high school that administers APs would have to register you, and most high schools will only register their own students. AP exams are meant to be taken in combination with an AP class, after all.) The preferred test for English proficiency in the US is the TOEFL.